Yemen’s government to swap hundreds of prisoners with Houthis

Yemen’s government has said it has agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap with its adversaries, the Houthi rebels, as part of a “confidence-building measure”, suggesting the warring sides could come to a ceasefire agreement at peace talks in Sweden later this week.

Yemen’s foreign minister, Khaled al-Yamani, said today that his government had “come to an agreement” with the Houthis after spending the “past eight to nine months locked in negotiations”.

Hadi Haig, a government official, told newsmen that the deal covered between 1,500 and 2,000 pro-government forces and between 1,000 and 1,500 Houthi rebels.

The chairman of the Houthi administration’s Committee for Prisoner Affairs, Abdul Qader al-Murtaza, said the agreement marks the first step towards resolving Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.